Architectural design by the artist El Lissitzky. Lissitzky (El Lissitzky), Lazar Markovich

Born into the family of craftsman Mordukhai Zalmanovich (Mark Solomonovich) Lissitzky and Sarah Leibovna Lissitzky in a small village in the Smolensk province. The family soon moved to Vitebsk.

In Smolensk, Lazar Lissitzky graduated from a real school in 1909.

He entered the Faculty of Architecture of the Higher Polytechnic School in Germany and later transferred to the Riga Polytechnic Institute, which was evacuated to Moscow during the First World War in 1914.

In 1916, Lazar Lissitzky began to participate in the work of the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of Arts, including exhibitions in 1917-1918 in Moscow. He was engaged in illustrating books published in Yiddish. During the same period, he went on ethnographic trips to Belarus and Lithuania, collecting materials on Jewish decorative art, and traveled to France and Italy.

He graduated from the Riga Polytechnic Institute in 1918 with the title of engineer-architect. In the same year, Lazar Lissitzky became one of the founders of the Kultur League ( League of Culture) is an avant-garde artistic and literary association.

He worked in the architectural bureau of Velikovsky and Klein in Moscow.

In 1919, he signed a contract for the illustration of 11 children's books with the Kyiv publishing house "Yidisher Folks-Farlag" ( Jewish People's Publishing House). In the same year, at the invitation of Marc Chagall, he came to Vitebsk to teach at the People's Art School until 1920. He decorated the city for the holidays and participated in the preparation of the celebrations of the Committee for Combating Unemployment, designed books and posters.

In 1920, El Lissitzky began to sign his works with this pseudonym and work in the style of Suprematism under the influence of K. Malevich. He created several propaganda posters in the style of Suprematism.

Later he entered the State Institute of Artistic Culture (INKhUK). In his workshop, the project "Lenin's Tribune" was completed.

He began teaching at the Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops (VKhUTEMAS) in 1921 in Moscow. In the same year he left for Germany and later moved to Switzerland.

In 1922-1923, he actively illustrated books of Jewish publishing houses with his graphics, while living in Berlin.

In 1923-1925, El Lissitzky was engaged in vertical zoning of urban development, creating projects of "horizontal skyscrapers" for Moscow.

In 1926 he began teaching at the Higher Artistic and Technical Institute (VKHUTEIN).

In 1927, he created new principles of exhibition exposition as a whole organism, which were implemented at the All-Union Printing Exhibition in Moscow in 1927.

In 1928 - 1929, El Lissitzky was engaged in the creation of transformable and built-in furniture. During this period, he was engaged in photomontage, creating for the "Russian Exhibition" in Zurich in 1929 the poster "Everything for the front! All for victory! (Let's have more tanks)."

In 1930-1932, according to the project of El Lissitzky, a printing house for the Ogonyok magazine was built in 1st Samotechny Lane. The building of the printing house was built on the principle of a "horizontal skyscraper".

In 1937, El Lissitzky's photomontage was presented, dedicated to the adoption of the Stalinist constitution, in four issues of the USSR in Construction magazine.

El Lissitzky died of tuberculosis in 1941 and is buried at the Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow.

Biography

Outstanding Soviet artist. Graphic artist, painter, designer, architect, art theorist; representative of Suprematism, stood at the origins of constructivism. One of the leaders of the avant-garde movement in the USSR.

The universality of Lissitzky as an artist and his desire to work in several areas of art is not just a feature of his talent, but to a large extent the need of that era (such were K. Malevich, V. Tatlin, L. Popova, A. Rodchenko, G. Klutsis and etc.), when the features of modern aesthetic culture were formed in the interaction of various types of art. L. M. Lissitzky was one of those who stood at the origins of the new architecture and had a significant influence on the formal and aesthetic searches of Soviet innovative architects with his theoretical and creative works, many of his architectural projects surround us in varying degrees in modern reality.

Lazar Markovich Lissitzky was born on November 10, 1890 at the Pochinok station of the Smolensk province in the family of an artisan. He studied at a real school in Smolensk, living with his grandfather. He spent his summer holidays in Vitebsk, where in 1903 he began studying at the "School of Drawing and Painting" by I. Pan. After graduating from college, he entered the architectural faculty of the Higher Polytechnic School in Darmstadt (Germany), graduating in 1914. Then, to obtain a Russian diploma, he studied for two more years (1915-1916) at the Riga Polytechnic Institute, which was evacuated to Moscow.

Returning to Russia was, to some extent, "falling back to the roots", he is actively involved in the work of the Artistic Section of the Ukrainian "Culture League", a Jewish association created in April 1916. Lissitzky designed several books in Hebrew (“Prague Legend” 1917, “Kozochka” 1919, “Ukrainian Folk Tales” 1922, etc.), combining in them the traditions of handwritten scrolls with the techniques of “world art” graphics.

At first, he took part in exhibitions of the association "World of Art" (1916-1917), the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of Arts in Moscow (1917-1918), in Kyiv (1920).

The books designed by the artist in 1917-1919 are a necessary link for understanding the logic of the creative development of Lissitzky the artist: from book to book it is obvious how Eliezer Lissitzky, fascinated by the study of folk traditions and the creation of new Jewish art, turns into El Lissitzky, who professes the supranational principles of Suprematism and constructivism.

In 1919, the artist arrives in Vitebsk, Marc Chagall offers him the leadership of the architectural workshop of the Vitebsk People's Art School. He taught at an architectural workshop (1919-1920).

Lissitzky collaborates with Vitebsk publications, created illustrations for newspapers, scenery for the play "The Woman from the Sea" based on the play by G. Ibsen.

In November 1919, Kazimir Malevich, the creator of Suprematism, came to Vitebsk to teach. In Vitebsk, Malevich created the legendary avant-garde art association UNOVIS (“Affirmative of the New Art”), Lissitzky takes an active part in its work. The UNOVIS manifesto was published by Kazimir Malevich in the Vitebsk magazine Art (1921).

Malevich and Lissitzky participated in the festive decorations of Vitebsk, decorated the city's buildings in the Suprematist style, decorated the theater for the second anniversary of the Vitebsk Committee to Combat Unemployment, organized numerous exhibitions, and philosophical debates. In Vitebsk, Lazar Lissitzky first used the pseudonym El Lissitzky. In the summer of 1921, the artist was called to Moscow to VKHUTEMAS to teach a course in the history of architecture and monumental painting.

Lived in Germany and Switzerland (1921-1925). In 1922, together with Ilya Ehrenburg, he founded the magazine "Thing", together with M. Shtam and G. Schmidt - the magazine "ABC" (1925), with G. Arp in Zurich he published a book-montage "Kunstism". Joined the Dutch group "Style".

After returning to Moscow, he was engaged in the design of books, magazines, posters. Since 1926 he taught at the Leningrad VKhUTEIN, joined INKhUK. Created several architectural projects.

Revolution, a social turning point, cardinal changes in people's consciousness, in the 20s awakened cosmopolitanism in the creators of that time, and El Lissitzky was no exception. Under the influence of Malevich's ideas, he plunged into the world of Suprematism, developing his own recognizable style. Creates Suprematist posters ("Lenin's tribune" 1920-1924), draws up books ("Suprematist tale about two squares", 1922). One of the most famous works of Lissitzky was the poster "Beat the Whites with a Red Wedge", printed in Vitebsk in 1920.

In 1923, the artist published the book "Two Voices", which became a triumph of typography - the art of designing printed works by means of typesetting and layout. And this term itself, so popular now, owes its birth to Lazar Lissitzky. In the same year, when the collection "For the Voice" was released, Lissitzky published the notes "Topography of Typography", where eight basic principles of the new art were formulated. In these principles, Lazar Lissitzky was ahead of his time, the artist seemed to foresee the onset of the computer era, in the last four paragraphs the artist accurately describes our time: “5. The design of the book organism with the help of cliches implements a new optics. Supernaturalistic reality improves vision. 6. Continuous sequence of pages - bioscopic book. 7. New book requires new writers. The inkwell and quills are dead. 8. The printed sheet conquers space and time. The printed sheet and the infinity of the book must themselves be overcome.

The design of the collection "For the Voice" was perceived by professionals as a revelation. This book opened the way for the artist to the international Gutenberg Society, founded in 1900 in Mainz, the birthplace of the inventor of printing. In 1925 the Society and the Gutenberg Museum celebrated their anniversary. It was decided to release the imposing "Celebration Edition" of the artist's book for him.

Based on the achievements of the inventor of Suprematism - Malevich, E. Lissitzky created spatial compositions, which he called "prouns" (1919-24). Prouns were axonometric images of the artist's utopian architectural fantasies - they are detached from the ground, directed to the sky, or in a state of balance impossible for earthly architecture. In fact, these are three-dimensional three-dimensional Suprematist models and spatial worlds, with the help of which the author made a revolution in the art and architecture of the 20s.

Developing his theory, in 1923 El Lissitzky created a “room of prouns” for the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. Once in it, the visitor suddenly found himself in the proun itself, the space of which turned from a plane into a volume. The exposition interacted with the viewer, the screens divided the hall into different spaces, the color of the pavilion changed - and even the walls moved! All these finds of the artist were then used at many other exhibitions and expositions, including now.

El Lissitzky was one of the first to understand the significance of the formal artistic searches of left-wing painters for the development of modern architecture. Working at the intersection of architecture and fine arts, he did a lot to transfer to the new architecture those aesthetic discoveries that helped shape its modern avant-garde look.

Lissitzky's architectural activity consisted in creating projects of "horizontal skyscrapers" (1923-25). One of the most far-sighted and spectacular was the project of a horizontal skyscraper in Moscow near the Nikitsky Gate. And although this project was not implemented then, modern architects in our time - the time of new materials and technologies - return to it more than once. In 1930-1932, a printing house for the Ogonyok magazine was built in Moscow according to the project of Lissitzky.

L. M. Lissitzky takes an active part in architectural competitions: the House of Textiles in Moscow (1925), residential complexes in Ivanovo-Voznesensk (1926), the House of Industry in Moscow (1930), the Pravda plant. He designs a water station and a stadium in Moscow (1925), a village club (1934), takes an active part in the planning and design of the Park of Culture and Rest named after. Gorky in Moscow (In 1929, Lissitzky became its chief architect).

L. Lissitzky was fond of photography, used photomontage techniques in posters, magazines and books. In 1924, using the technique of photomontage, he created a self-portrait.

In the 1930s, El Lissitzky was one of the main creators of the peculiar face of the USSR at a Construction Site magazine, and many issues of this publication were made entirely according to his layout, for example, the February 1933 issue dedicated to the Red Army. At the same time, the artist designed the albums "15 years of the USSR" and "15 years of the Red Army".

Closely connected with the development of modern interior design is Lissitzky's work in the field of exhibition design, in which he introduced a number of fundamental innovations: design for the Soviet pavilion at the exhibition of decorative arts in Paris (1925), the All-Union Printing Exhibition in Moscow (1927), Soviet pavilions at international press exhibition in Cologne (1928), at the international fur exhibition in Leipzig (1930) and at the international exhibition "Hygiene" in Dresden (1930). E. Lissitzky created new principles of exhibition exposition, perceiving it as an integral organism.

The artist created a project for the organization of space for the unrealized production of the theater by V. E. Meyerhold based on the play by S. M. Tretyakov "I want a child" (1929-1930).

Lazar Lissitzky stood at the origins of folding and transforming furniture, which we see to this day. In 1930, his project for a Soviet economical apartment made a splash at the exhibition. The owner of such an apartment could, at his own discretion, determine and change the functional properties of the apartment. Change the bedroom to the dining room and the study to the nursery. There was also presented a collapsible armchair, which has become a classic of avant-garde furniture.

The fate of Lissitzky as a theoretician developed in such a way that most of his works were published abroad in German in the 1920s in articles in the journals ABC, Merz, G, and others. In the book “Russia. Reconstruction of architecture in the Soviet Union” or remained unpublished at the time. Some theoretical works were published much later, for example, in 1967 in the book "El Lissitzky" published in Dresden.

The artist died in 1941 from tuberculosis at his home in Skhodnya. A few days before his death, his poster was printed in thousands of copies, one of the best of the war - “Let's have more tanks ... Everything for the front! Everything for the victory!

Despite the fact that Lazar Lissitzky exhibited quite actively in the USSR and abroad, the personal exhibition of the artist in Russia took place only in 1960 at the Mayakovsky Museum. It was prepared by Nikolai Khardzhiev and Efim Dinershtein. Based on the materials collected for this exhibition, N. I. Khardzhiev wrote two articles. The following exhibitions took place in 1990-1991 and were timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the outstanding artist.

El Lissitzky is not a "dead classic", but a living figure, a source of ideas and new approaches to modern architecture. He had an undeniable influence on many of the most famous architects of our time, without his ideas and creativity there would be no such famous architects as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and many others.

Paintings and graphic works, printed editions and posters of L. M. Lissitzky are kept in the largest Russian museum collections: the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Russian Museum, the State Hermitage, the Russian State Library, the Theater Museum. A. Bakhrushin, RGALI, Tomsk Regional Art Museum, Novosibirsk State Museum of Local Lore; in the largest museums of the world: the Van Abbe Museum in the Netherlands, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, MOMA, the Tate Gallery in London and others.

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In recent years, there have been a number of articles in magazines, exhibitions abroad, art albums and pictorial publications dedicated to the memory of Lazar Markovich (El) Lissitzky(1890-1941) - one of the Soviet artists and architects. The articles mainly analyze his activities as an exhibition designer, typographer, photomontage master, and least of all as an architect and architectural theorist.

Meanwhile, he was a comprehensively gifted person, "an artist by vocation, a thinker and theorist by inner exactingness, a communist revolutionary by conviction."

The creative path of L. Lissitzky (his active work proceeded from 1917 to 1933) is not without complex contradictions, unfinished searches, maybe even paradoxes, but the era itself was extremely complex - the time of the merciless struggle of class ideas and ideologies in culture and art, when a decisive break was made in social relations rejected by history.

Lazar Lissitzky was an "artist of great social emotions" (Khardzhiev N.), of high creative intensity, with a keen sense of modernity. In his autobiography, he wrote: "... our generation was born in the last decades of the 19th century and we became conscripts of the era of a new beginning of human history ...". “We were brought up by the era of inventions. From the age of 5 I listen to the Edison phonograph, 8 - the first tram, 10 - I see a movie, then a car, an airship, an airplane, a radio. Feelings are armed with tools that increase and decrease. Advanced European and American technology takes care of the tooling of our generation. By the age of 24 - a diploma of an engineer-architect.

L. Lissitzky graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Higher Technical School in Darmstadt (1914), visited many European countries. In 1912, his first works were accepted for the exhibition of the “artistic and architectural association” in St. Petersburg. In 1915-17, L. Lissitzky worked in Moscow and participated in the exhibitions "World of Art", "Jack of Diamonds", etc. These years were years of creative doubts and internal rebellion against the existing reality, denial of it and a thirst for renewal, conflicting searches " new" art. The revolution ended this.

“For the creativity of our generation, October was the first youth,” wrote L. Lissitzky later. He becomes a member of the art section at the Moscow City Council, a member of the isofront, makes a poster for the Political Administration of the Western Front, directs (1919) the architectural department of the art school in Vitebsk, reads (since 1921) in VKHUTEMAS e course "Architecture and monumental painting".

In 1920, L. Lissitzky published his first sharply polemical articles in the handwritten almanac "Unovis" (the affirmation of a new art). During this period under "special influence" K.Malevich, he came up with an analogy of Suprematism - "the new reality of cosmic birth in the world from within ourselves." But here we find in L. Lissitzky full recognition of the victorious social revolution, although perceived in a somewhat abstract and romantic way: “We left the old world the concept of our own house, our own palace, our own barracks and our own temple. We set ourselves the task of the city - a single creative work, a center of collective effort, a radio mast that sends an explosion of creative efforts into the world: we will overcome the fettering foundation of the earth in it and rise above it ... this dynamic architecture will create a new theater of life ... ". L. Lissitzky wanted to come to this then utopian idea of ​​a collective city floating in space through the development of formal-constructive elements in painting, through cubism and suprematism, that is, new “textural elements grown in painting”, which “will spill over the entire the world under construction, and the roughness of concrete, the smoothness of metal, the brilliance of glass" will become "the skin of a new life."

It was at that time, apparently, a natural way in the search for new expressive forms in architecture among many well-known artists (for example, Corbusier; we, partly Tatlin). L. Lissitzky was formed as a professional among the bourgeois intelligentsia, which before the revolution was in the service of the industrial bourgeoisie, whose culture as a whole sank into the deepest ideological decline, and in the fine arts went along the path of denying any content, abstracting the artistic form. Bourgeois culture tried to find and continue itself in technology, in replacing the ideological content in art with a technical function, in a “new” material art organized in accordance with capitalist economic management, where the products of artistic labor were turned into an impersonal commodity. The so-called "industrial arts" (including constructive architecture) were born, the appearance of which was naturally due to the development of science and technology, machine production. "Technology has revolutionized not only social and economic, but also aesthetic development." Visual art, devoid of content, has become a means of analytical search for elements of material form and even the creation of things, including new architecture. So Suprematism went beyond the limits of the easel painting and moved on to "three-dimensional things", to abstract structures, "architectons".

But in Russia after the revolution, the new industrial art - architecture - was comprehended on a different social basis, in search of new social and functional patterns and expressive aesthetic forms. And L. Lissitzky during this period made attempts to translate the artistic problems of Suprematism into the language of architectural plasticity, moving from abstract “things” in painting to the depiction of specific, albeit non-utilitarian, “things” expressed in real materials; he wanted to combine the aesthetic moments of non-objective painting and plastic arts with the technical, structural elements of industrial structures.

The search for new forms in architecture L. Lissitzky began with a series of pictorial and graphic experiments, from which he then moved on to models and specific projects of architectural structures. In painting and graphics, experimentation was very little hampered by the material and it was possible to quickly, with the help of analysis, discover the plastic elements of shaping.

This “laboratory workshop”, abstract “projecting” was necessary for him to comprehend new expressive and non-pictorial forms and compositions in architecture, when the “eternal” traditions of order architecture or the architecture of “historical styles” cultivated in the official practice of pre-revolutionary Russia were rejected.

The main elements of architectonic forms (mass, weight, materiality, proportions, rhythm, space, etc.) were worked out by L. Lissitzky on a plane in graphic experiments - “ Prounakh(projects for establishing a new one).

« Proun has a transfer station on the way from painting to architecture ”, - this is how he himself defined his searches, he never attached self-pressing significance to “prouns”. " The essence of proun lies in passing through the stages of concrete creativity, and not on research, clarification and popularization of life”, - wrote L. Lissitzky, contrasting the inventive functions of the art of architecture with the fine art in architecture.

Developing the idea of ​​the principles of the correspondence of material, form and construction, he said that forms in space are expressed in materials, and not in "concepts of aesthetics", that the relation of form to material is the relation of mass to force, and the material itself receives form through constructions. " Proun creates new material through a new form". L. Lissitzky draws a parallel here with technical creativity: “the engineer who created the propeller, designing it, sees how the technologist working with him creates it in the laboratory, depending on the dynamic and static requirements of the form - from wood, metal or other material” .

If it is not possible to create a new form from existing materials, then a new material must be created.

L. Lissitzky depicted the compositions of "Prouns" in space, in "infinity", moving away from the "mortal surface" of the earth. He considered the proun not as an image existing on a plane, but as a “construction” that must be viewed from all sides, which is “screwed” into space, is in motion, rotates along “many axes”. Thus, proun, starting on the surface, passes into the building model of space and further participates in the construction of all kinds of heterogeneous forms encountered in life. Despite the abstract nature of the Prouns, L. Lissitzky associated them with a specific social content, as the ultimate goal of the search. He said that " the main elements of our architecture refer to ... a social revolution, not a technical one”, which happened in the world before.

The compositions allowed by L. Lissitzky on the plane were not paintings or easel paintings, they are even denied in prouns in favor of “shaping” and “creating” elements of new art. He further put forward the task of creating "things" with a specific purpose and functions, the constituent elements of which, as well as their interconnections, would meet the requirements of the laws of the function of the object itself and its elements, and not the requirements of any aesthetic canons. It was already pseudo-constructivism in painting and constructivism in developing in architecture.

Despite the fact that L. Lissitzky acted in the early years as a follower of "pure geometrism" (Suprematism), his ideological positions were profoundly different from the idealistic philosophical views of K. Malevich, who proclaimed the inaccessibility of the artist's comprehension of the world and the availability of only its sensations. L. Lissitzky not only recognized the objective reality of the world, but also strove for its revolutionary transformation. He never professed "pure" art, moving away from life: on the contrary, he always tried to fill it with great social content. The fact that L. Lissitzky used non-pictorial, abstract-symbolic forms does not mean the exclusion of real content from his work, especially since, as already noted, he never attached independent significance to his experimental works of this period, considering them only as an arsenal of a laboratory workshop necessary for the future of real creativity.

And indeed, subsequently, the prouns served him as the source material for the creation of the well-known project of the “horizontal skyscraper” and the tower residential building with a plan in the form of a “shamrock”. L. Lissitzky quickly gets out from under the influence of K. Malevich and in general from group isolation.

In 1922, L. Lissitzky was sent abroad - to Germany, Holland, France - to restore contacts with figures of Western European culture, where he met with Theo-Van-Dijsburg, Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Hans Schmidt , Gilbersheimer, Hannes Mayer .

In Germany, L. Lissitzky draws closer to the school " Bauhaus", in Holland - with the group" Style"(Mondrian), and Switzerland - with a group of modern architects ( Emil Rost, Witwer) and other architectural associations of Europe. He makes reports on young Soviet art, promotes constructive architecture and new "industrial arts", founds art magazines, participates in the organization of Soviet art exhibitions (Berlin, Amsterdam). Ch. Chaplin, S. Eisenstein, Le Corbusier, F. Leger collaborated in the magazine "Thing", published by L. Lissitzky together with I. Ehrenburg. In Switzerland, L. Lissitzky, together with the architect M. Shtam, founded the ABS magazine.

Being abroad (1924), L. Lissitzky receives an offer from Professor Ladovsky to establish contact with " Asnova”(Association of New Architects), since the board of the society considered it “ideologically close to the group of architects that form the association ...” ( Ladovsky, Dokuchaev, Krinsky, Lavrov, Rukhlyadev, Balikhin, Efimov, engineer Loleit and etc.). The charter of "Asnova" set the goal (as Ladovsky informed Lissitzky) "to raise architecture, as an art, to a level corresponding to the current state of technology and science." L. Lissitzky did not become a member of the association, but provided her with all kinds of assistance, especially as an art critic and architectural theorist. With his help, Asnova attracted many progressive architects abroad to cooperate: in Germany - Adolf Bene, in France - Le Corbusier, in Holland - Mark Shtam, in Switzerland - Emil Root.

L. Lissitzky together with Ladovsky in 1926 edited the issue of Izvestia Asnova, where the main creative principles of the association were outlined. "Asnova" determined its understanding of the social tasks of the revolution in the country by a kind of decoding of the word "USSR". The USSR - as the Builder of a new way of life, the Collector of class energy for the construction of a classless society, which sets new tasks in architecture, as Rationalized labor in unity with science and highly developed technology. Asnova chose the material embodiment of the principles of the USSR in architecture as the basis of its activity and considered it urgent to equip architecture with the tools and methods of modern science. The association set as its task the establishment of "Generalizing principles in architecture and its liberation from atrophying forms", when the "tempo of modern fine art" puts every day the architect in front of "new technical organisms".

"Asnova" wanted to work "for the masses", "which required" architecture "unique, like a car, from "housing is more than just an apparatus for the administration of natural needs", from architecture - a rational justification of its qualities and not "amateurism, but skill ".

Thus, Asnova quite clearly defined its common long-term tasks and understanding of the new Soviet content of architecture, its social significance. L. Lissitzky took part in the development of these principles of the association. In this issue, L. Lissitzky made an article "A series of skyscrapers for Moscow" and published the first version of his project " horizontal skyscraper» (The Swiss architect E. Root took part in the development of the structural scheme and in the engineering calculation). Speaking about the need and origin of such a decision, L. Lissitzky briefly characterizes the current structure of Moscow, the plan of which he attributed to the “concentric medieval type”. “Its structure: the center is the Kremlin, ring A, ring B and radial streets. Critical places: these are the intersection points of radial streets (Tverskaya, Myasnitskaya, etc.) with circles (boulevards) that require recycling without slowing down traffic, especially crowded in these places. There are many central institutions here. This is where the idea of ​​the proposed type was born.”

The skyscraper consisted of three abutments-frames, inside of which there were stairwells and elevators, and a horizontal 3-storey volume, resembling the letter "H" in plan. One abutment went underground between the subway lines and served as a station for it, tram stops were designed at the other two. Unlike the existing systems of skyscrapers in the project, “the horizontal (useful) was clearly separated from the vertical (necessary - support), which created the “necessary” visibility of the entire interior of the institution. The frame was designed in steel, the glass was supposed to transmit light rays and retain heat, for ceilings and partitions an effective heat and sound insulating material was supposed. "Normalized" elements of the frame allowed them to produce "circulation" and, as needed, to assemble finished parts without scaffolding.

In this project, L. Lissitzky contrasts old Moscow with its atrophying parts with new architecture, thereby wishing to deepen the existing contrast and give a new scale to the city, "in which a person today no longer measures with his own elbow, but with hundreds of meters." The architecture of his skyscraper was unambiguously presented from all points of view of the building, which was especially emphasized in the graphic design of the project.

The project of the “horizontal skyscraper” depicts L. Lissitzky as an innovator in architecture, striving to use in construction all the achievements of science and technology and industrial methods of erecting buildings.

But with an interesting idea for a new type of building, Lissitzky's project was abstracted from the specific problems of the reconstruction of Moscow. L. Lissitzky only "opposes" the new architecture to the old buildings; “critical places requiring recycling” were found by him in the old, “medieval” structure of Moscow and did not solve the problems of changing the very structure of the city, which could not remain the same in the course of social, technical and aesthetic transformations carried out during the socialist revolution.

« Measure architecture by architecture”- this short aphorism - the slogan that ends the issue of Asnova belongs to L. Lissitzky. At one time, this slogan was subjected to harsh criticism more than once, and with the help of analogues, such as “Art for Art’s sake”, Asnova was accused of separating (autonomy) architecture from social content and leading it to aimless formalistic searches, independent of real practice. . However, these purely external parallels did not reveal the content of the slogan. In this phrase, L. Lissitzky first of all pointed out the non-representational nature of the art of architecture and called for abandoning the consideration of architecture with a comparison of its objects with the objects of the material world surrounding us, since architecture, as an independent field of art, has its own specific formal compositional structure, dependent on functional and material-constructive basis of construction and cannot have direct prototypes in nature. L. Lissitzky also denied that “man is the measure of all things” (the position of ancient Greek sophistry), including architecture, that is, architecture cannot serve an individual, but only serves the collective and society as a whole.

In 1925, L. Lissitzky returned to his homeland, actively involved in practical activities, begins "to do every useful thing that is required of him today." He again teaches at VKhUTEMAS, edits various publications on art, designs books and magazines (for example, "USSR at a Construction Site"), designs furniture, starts work on the design of All-Union and foreign exhibitions: in Moscow, Cologne, Stuttgart, Paris, Dresden, New York, Leipzig.

L. Lissitzky strives "to do this every work not for admiration, but as a guide to action, the engine of our feelings along the general line to build a classless society" (autobiography "Lissitzky has a word", 1932). All these works were a great success. For example, at the International Printing Exhibition in Cologne, the Soviet pavilion, designed by L. Lissitzky, attracted everyone's attention. Almost the entire Western European press praised the artist's skill, noting that this "art makes a breathtaking impression on every visitor" and that it was "an outstanding exhibition of Russia", which everyone recognized, no matter how he felt about Soviet power.

L. Lissitzky also continues to actively speak on the theoretical front of architecture. He publishes articles in technical journals on topical issues in the development of Soviet architecture. In the article “Architecture of the iron and reinforced concrete frame”, L. Lissitzky advocates “the architecture of space and time, among which they live and move” and for which “the iron and reinforced concrete frame (framework) can be an excellent tool in our hands.” However, considering the process of development of steel and reinforced concrete frame structures, he shows the complexity and inconsistency of this development, the influence on this development process, on the one hand, of traditional eclectic aesthetics, architectural application, on the other, engineering, which hypnotized the architect with its design and he " confuses the construction, as such, with the forms in which it is expressed”, which, in turn, turned into decorative applied art.

As a criterion for modern architecture, L. Lissitzky put forward the ratio of the cross section of the structural elements of the building in the plan to the usable area of ​​the plan (“the more modern the plan, the smaller this fraction”) and the decrease in the own weight of the building itself. He saw the solution to the problem of weight reduction in the transition to new building materials (iron - steel - duralumin - new alloys). The material in a modern frame structure, according to L. Lissitzky, should be distributed along the stress lines and everything superfluous should be discarded. Using examples of foreign construction of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, L. Lissitzky traces the path of development of a frame high-rise building, but does not find a positive solution to this problem anywhere. He notes only the competition for the Chicago Tribune skyscraper, which resulted in a number of proposals with an externally constructive frame and large glass wall surfaces (M. Taut, W. Gropius and Meyer). L. Lissitzky notes the qualities of the new construction - reinforced concrete, which is more plastic than steel, and which in principle can be given any shape, which, nevertheless, is its architectural danger. Reinforced concrete structures began to compete with steel. L. Lissitzky also notes that the reinforced concrete frame provides ample opportunities for obtaining large spans, for creating a maximum light surface, when the window area occupies the entire span between the pillars of the structure. When the design made it possible to move the frame post away from the facade inside the house and leave only a strip of console on the facade, then the facades, according to Lissitzky, received maximum horizontal expressiveness and this manifested the modern character of the wall, the enclosing, and not the bearing function of which was most clearly expressed here. Concluding the article, L. Lissitzky calls the engineer who created the steel and reinforced concrete frame “the undisputed master of modernity”. Architecture, which is still lagging behind modern times, must have this construction, but from one construction “it will not work by itself” yet, other “no less significant conditions” are also needed. L. Lissitzky, among these significant conditions, called the experience that creates real construction. And “real construction creates centers, collectives, where this complex art grows out of the joint work of craftsmen (who are created by experience). Mutually fertilizing, they turn the project-idea into reality, into a “thing”.

Another article by L. Lissitzky was devoted to a critical analysis of the work of Le Corbusier, whom he always considered "the largest and most significant artist of our time", despite harsh critical articles about him. The criticism was caused by the fact that many Soviet architects were tempted by the system of external formal techniques in Corbusier's architecture and his general aesthetic teaching, considered, as a rule, without connection with the content of the entire architectural system of the master. A new “idol” has appeared, requiring victims in the form of imitations, an “idol” standing in the ranks of figures of a culture alien to us and serving it. “But the structure of our culture should be different,” notes L. Lissitzky, “collective. The same new structure should have our art in the first place - our architecture. Therefore, if we build our architecture in the old ways of imitation (it doesn’t matter “ancient” or “new”), in the old way of focusing on one individuality (no matter how talented it is), then our entire architecture is doomed to become a nut without a kernel , empty. Art is not adopted - for it there is soil, there is a need, there is an atmosphere and there is a will for it, and it begins to grow. Architecture is a synthesis in the material not only of technical improvement, not only of economic progress, but also, first of all, of the social structure that determines a new worldview.

The article was called "Idols and idolaters." The idea for the name was born after reading Corbusier's book "L'art decoratif d'aujourd'hui", where the first chapter, which mercilessly scourged the fetishization of antiques, the restoration of these things in modern life, artistic applied art, was called "Icons and icon worshipers".

L. Lissitzky says that we will not find a new worldview, due to the new social order, in a modern Western architect, since an architect in the West is a buffer between a large entrepreneur-contractor and a consumer-resident of a mass type. If the new architect in the West raised a “revolt” against the old architecture, then this happened, first of all, in the engineering and technical field, in a primitive rationalistic plan, and the entrepreneur accepted this, since it “brings him more profit”, but the entrepreneur crosses out "good shape" if it only benefits the consumer, but is not a source of income. Hence the contradictory striving of the architect to become "free", that is, to become a contractor himself.

The impact of Le Corbusier, as L. Lissitzky points out, was strong because he was an artist-artist with “excellent analytical training in painting” and, in addition, he seemed to be a revolutionary, because he built his aesthetics on the data of new technology, new materials and structures (reinforced concrete). "The artist's discovery of the field of engineering seemed like a revolution." But like all artists in the West, notes L. Lissitzky, Corbusier was forced to be an extreme individualist, to be original, because "new" is measured on originality, on sensation. And besides, what is most important, the only consumer of this art was the "philanthropist". The Corbusier artist is given an order and expects a sensation from him, a trick, a building that is more interesting to see than to live in (for example, the village of Pesac-Bordeaux). “This individual anti-social origin determines the work of a talented master. The result is not housing construction, but spectacle-building.”

Corbusier "is not connected either with the proletariat or with industrial capital", he does not know the demands of the broad masses, hence, according to L. Lissitzky, his "asociality", isolated artistry, "invention" of a new housing culture in his atelier.

Pointing to the formal principles of Le Corbusier, L. Lissitzky talks about intuitive, vaguely formulated definitions and the search for a master, about tasteful and often purely pictorial formal techniques, even in spite of function (Corbusier is a functionalist!), about a purely pictorial use of color that “does not materialize” form, but only paints it, about the resolution of proportional relationships within only two dimensions, where the composition is built as a frame, as a non-objective painting.

He criticizes Corbusier's urban planning concepts. His city of the future is “neither capitalist, nor proletarian, nor socialist”, it is a city in nowhere, the development value of which is only propaganda in nature, as it tries to attract the attention of specialists to urban planning issues. In the 1920s, Corbusier's urban planning projects were indeed academic in nature, although, with a thorough analysis of his "city", one could see the concept of adapting the "city" to the needs of contemporary capitalism, the desire to resolve the social problems of the "city" in a "peaceful" way, through only the architectural restructuring of the entire life of the city.

Lissitzky notes that the problems that we must put in the foundation of our city have nothing to do with this "city in nowhere."
The article ends with sharply polemical conclusions that "the end of idolatry is the beginning of Soviet architecture."

L. Lissitzky calls to study Western science and technology, but be careful with art, since architecture is the leading art, and we should not be based on developing socialist principles

At the end of the 1920s, the Viennese publishing house Schrol undertook the publication of a series of works devoted to the formation of the latest modern architecture, the analysis of socio-economic prerequisites, artistic and technical forms of architecture of the “XX century style”. To this end, it offered well-known figures and leaders of modern architecture in some countries - R. Ginsburg in France, R. Neutra in the USA, as well as L. Lissitzky in the USSR, cooperation in work, setting before them the task of showing in each country those “constructive, formal, economic elements that opened up the new in construction, contributed to it, and, finally, affirmed it.
In connection with this proposal, since 1929, L. Lisitsky wrote a book about the development of Soviet architecture over the previous decade - “Russia. Reconstruction of architecture in the Soviet Union. (The book was published in German in 1930 as the first volume of a series of works.)

If R. Neutra presented American architecture primarily from the point of view of its technical and economic development, and R. Ginsburg described the achievements of French engineering of the 19th and 20th centuries, then L. Lissitzky, refusing historical digressions, showed those “enormous internal spiritual transformations, states , societies, economies, which determine a completely new orientation of all construction, ”as the publishing house itself wrote in the preface to the book.

In this book, he outlined and summarized his theoretical research and showed the dialectic of the development of Soviet architecture based on a new social basis.

"The basis of everything", the foundation of all Soviet construction, L. Lissitzky calls "our social revolution", considering it as "a new page in the history of human society." To it, and not to the technical revolution generated by machine production, he refers all the elements of Soviet architecture. As a result of the revolution, everything "shifted towards the general, numerous" from the private and solitary, and therefore "the whole field of architecture became a problem." L. Lissitzky associated the solution to this problem with the reconstruction of the country's economy, the reorganization of the entire economy, which "created a new perception of life and was the nutritious soil of culture, including architecture, which stood at the beginning and had to not only design, but also, having understood" new life formations, actively participate in the formation of a new world.

But the reconstruction of architecture could not begin without a certain continuity, without the use of previous experience. The revolution opened wide prospects for "artistic cultural work" which had a decisive influence on the reconstruction of architecture. L. Lissitzky believed that in this regard, the reconstruction of architecture was greatly influenced by "the relationship between the newly emerging arts." In this area, according to L. Lissitzky, two lines of analytical perception of the world (as a geometric order) clearly emerged: perception through vision, through colors and perception through sensations (touch), through materials.

The first point of view (K. Malevich) reduced everything to colorful planimetry, operated with purely spectral colors, but then, abandoning them and the planimetric figure itself (from painting), moved on to the “pure” formation of volumes, architectons.

"In this way, painting became the interchange station of architecture." But Malevich, who denied the reality of the world, did not go beyond pointlessness. Architects had to look for further opportunities.

The second perception of the world was not only contemplative. Forms were created based on the specific properties of the accepted material (Tatlin). It was assumed that the intuitive and artistic mastery of the material leads to discoveries, on the basis of which objects can be created, regardless of the rational scientific methods of technology. The Tower of the Third International Tatlin, according to L. Lissitzky, was proof of this position and one of the first attempts to create a synthesis between "technical" and "artistic".

"These achievements of related arts, - wrote L. Lissitzky, - made a great contribution to the reconstruction of architecture - the method of constructivism." However, the “new building forces” that did not exist in the country had to master this method, they had to be prepared by a new school. The new pedagogy began to be created in the Soviet architectural school by Ladovsky, Dokuchaev, Krinsky and others.

The decisive factor for the new school was the work on the development of new methods for the scientific and objective explanation of the architectonic form - mass, surface, space, proportions, rhythm, etc.

L. Lissitzky believed that this work brought great results in the application of engineering methods and design methods in architecture, where the form should arise by itself from the structure. But, the creation of methods alone is not enough, - he said, practice is needed, work at a construction site is needed in order to get away from academicism, isolation from life.

Speaking about the first projects of Soviet architecture - the competition for the "Palace of Labor", L. Lissitzky notes the Vesnins' project as the first step towards new construction, although some of its elements were still "traditional". He writes that it was "our first attempt to create a new form for a social task" among other projects that were "amorphous conglomerates of the fragments of the past and the machined present, based more on literary than on architectonic ideas." The project of the Vesnins of the Leningradskaya Pravda building was already attributed by L. Lissitzky to the aesthetics of constructivism, and the Soviet pavilion of the Paris exhibition of 1925 by K. Melnikov, according to L. Lissitzky, was already really an example of the reconstruction of our architecture, although in this case the solution of the utilitarian task was preceded by "formal » the search for an architectonic idea.

L. Lissitzky believed that the emergence of the idea of ​​the "Palace of Labor" brought into our lives "the danger of someone else's, deceitful pathos." If the concept of "Palace" is applicable to our life, Lissitzky wrote, then "then we must first transform factories into palaces of labor, which cease to be" a place of exploitation and class hatred. The architect must participate in the concept of labor productivity. The factory, thanks to the organization of time, the rhythm of work, the involvement of everyone in the collective work, becomes the higher school of the new man - the socialized focus of the urban population. Its architecture is not only a shell of a machine complex.

L. Lissitzky wrote about housing construction in our country as a social problem of “fundamental cultural value”. It was necessary to create a dwelling not for individuals "in conflict with each other", but for the masses, as a residential standard. He develops the idea of ​​housing with a collective service, which, on the one hand, should have intimate, individual elements (“normalized not only now, but also in the future”), on the other hand, public (food, raising children, etc.), over time, becoming "more and more free in volume and form." In conclusion, L. Lissitzky concludes that it is important to move from "an arithmetic sum of private apartments into a synthetic complex" of a residential building, the architecture of which will be "an expression of social status" and "will influence social life." At the same time, he believed that over time, in the development of the home, individual desires could be "provided with a greater field of activity."

Public buildings, primarily clubs, L. Lissitzky attached great importance. The club, according to L. Lissitzky, is a condenser of the creative energy of the masses, opposing the "power plants" of the old culture - the palace and the church (buildings of worship and government). You need to "surpass their strength." Gradually, the idea of ​​the club began to clear up. The task of the clubs is "to make a person free and not oppress him, as the church and the state oppressed before."

The club is a place of rest and relaxation of the labor tension of the masses and a new charge of energy. Here they are brought up "in the people of the team" and "expand vital interests." In the club, public interests are combined with individual ones; hence - large and small rooms, which should be "in new spatial relationships." This is not a spectacular building (theatre), here we need transforming premises that allow various ways of using and moving” by the amateur masses. The club, unlike the dwelling, says L. Lissitzky, should attract with the richness of architecture. At the same time, he did not attribute the creation of a type of Soviet club building to the reconstruction of architecture, but considered it the first time a problem to be solved, since he had not seen buildings in the past that “in terms of their social significance could be a preliminary step.”

Considering the problems of urban planning in his book, L. Lissitzky wrote that a new social system is being implemented in an agrarian country in which there were cities belonging to completely different levels of culture (Moscow - Samarkand, Novosibirsk - Alma-Ata). After the revolution, the buildings of these cities and their planning structure had to serve completely new forms of social life. Not being able to immediately radically change the structure of the city, we began to build buildings of power, administration and institutions of a centralized economy. These buildings also had to be of a completely new type, and their designs were already being created. In this regard, L. Lissitzky calls successful the projects of A. Silchenko and I. Leonidov (the building of the Tsentrosoyuz in Moscow in 1928), which are examples of new ideas, where the reconstruction of architecture "made its demands."

Of course, the construction of new buildings in the old city did not solve the problems of socialist urban planning. L. Lissitzky foresees the attack of mechanized transport on the city, so he considered transport a new problem in urban planning. Along with this, according to L. Lisitsky, when developing the structure of a new city, it is necessary to take into account the “main forces” - the social structure of society and the technical level on which the implementation of new ideas depends. It is necessary to work on the creation of a new type of city with an appropriate planning structure and a system of buildings that meet new social and psycho-physical requirements.

L. Lissitzky notes the beginning of work on the creation of city projects for a classless society, conceived as "spiritual regulatory centers of the area", in which "the main engine of life will not be competitive struggle, but free competition." In the book, he briefly analyzes the well-known city projects of the 20s - centralized and linear.

In the final chapters “Future and Utopia” and “Ideological Superstructure”, L. Lissitzky speaks of the need “to be very businesslike today, very practical and abandon romance in order to catch up and overtake the rest of the world. But the next step, one of the ideas of which will be to overcome the foundation - attachment to the earth, will arise on the basis of a developed industry and technology. This idea is already being developed in a number of projects, for example, in the project of the Lenin Institute on the Lenin Hills by I. Leonidov. And the next stage of overcoming the foundation - attachment to the earth - goes even further and will require overcoming gravity, floating structures, physical-dynamic architecture.

In conclusion, L. Lissitzky speaks of a new architect, born of a new social reality, for whom labor (work) has no value "in itself" and "for itself", an end in itself, its own beauty; he receives all this only through his relation to the general. In the creation of any work, the share (participation) of the architect is visible and the share (participation) of society is hidden. “In our architecture, as in all our life, we strive to create a social order, that is, to raise the instinctive to the level of consciousness,” therefore, “reconstruction” should be understood as overcoming the obscure, chaotic.

L. Lissitzky considers the development of our architecture in the 1920s as a natural dialectical process in which three periods can be traced:

1) the denial of art only as an emotional, individual, romantic, isolated matter;

3) conscious purposeful architectural creativity, which produces a complete artistic impact on a previously developed objective scientific basis. Architecture should actively improve the overall standard of living. Such is the dialectic of development according to L. Lissitzky.

The last time L. Lissitzky appeared in print was in 1934 with the article "The Forum of Socialist Moscow." This article analyzes competitive projects for the building of the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry in Moscow, the results of which L. Lissitzky considered unsatisfactory. He attributed some of the projects to the style of "American contracting offices", skyscraper impersonal eclecticism with "purely external monumentality of rich monuments." In another part of the projects (projects of indisputable artists - among them Leonidov, Melnikov) one could see the desire to identify imagery, but "in a tongue-tied means of expression." In addition, all projects did not solve the problem of creating an ensemble in an extremely difficult situation - in a complex of historical buildings in the center of Moscow that are of world importance. In connection with the results of the competition, L. Lissitzky urged to beware of stylization, uncritical "testing different styles" in architectural practice, not to lose the "feeling of a builder", a co-author of any architectural structure. He wrote about freedom of search, but freedom that does not turn into anarchy does not lead to retrospectivism.

The search should be built, wrote L. Lissitzky, on the basis of our social reality, on the basis of creative tension, on "free possession of specific real means and materials from which an architectural image is created."

Summing up the consideration of the architectural theory of L. Lissitzky, it is possible to single out some temporal aspects of its development in it.

In his early theoretical and artistic activity, L. Lissitzky reveals a romantically abstract understanding of the tasks of post-revolutionary art and architecture contemporary to him and the declaration of an abstract “dynamically new architecture” through formally pictorial non-objective experiments that are quite subjective (personal) creative in nature and difficult to decipher and concretize . But soon L. Lissitzky freed himself from the “husk” of Suprematism and over the next decade consistently developed a theory of architecture based on the foundations of the socialist revolution. Some theoretical provisions of L. Lissitzky at one time received in the absence of a sufficiently developed economic and general cultural base were “premature” and abstract, which he himself subsequently pointed out when speaking about future “new building forces” and practices that overcome “isolation from life” .

The gigantic building practice in our country has now immeasurably enriched the theory of architecture. At the same time, the creative views of L. Lissitzky can now present a certain historical and theoretical interest.

Sergei Nikolaevich Balandin. 1968
LITERATURE:

1. El Lissitzky. Maler. Architect. Typograt. Fotograph. - Erinnerungen. Briete. Schriften. Ubergeben von Sophie Lissitzky-Kuppers/Veb Verlagder Kunst, Drezden, 1967. -C.407
2. Bojko Szymon. El Lisicki//Fotograria. Listopag. - 1963. - Nr. 11. - Warzawa.
3. Gerchuk Yu. El Lissitzky // Creativity. - 1990. - No. 10. - S. 24-26.
4. Khardzhiev N. In memory of the artist Lissitzky // Decorative art of the USSR. - 1961. - No. 2. - S. 10-12.
5. About Lissitzky. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of his birth (Conversation with V.O. Roskin. Recorded by Y. Gerchuk) // Decorative Art of the USSR. - 1966. - No. 5. - S. 17-18.
6. Balandin S.N., Pivkin V.M. An artist by vocation. - Proceedings of universities. Construction and architecture, 1991, 6. - 54-56.

Used photographs from sites

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Collectors and dealers also love El Lissitzky for his poster "Beat the whites with a red wedge!" - the most expensive Soviet poster. Care: $ 182,500. Sotheby's auction. Prints. April 26-27, 2012. New York. Lot No. 131. Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (El Lissitzky) (1890 - 1941), an enigmatic artist and "eternal" wanderer of constructivism, lived several lives in art. Graphic artist, illustrator, typographer, architect, photographer, theorist and architectural critic, as well as one of the creators of a new art form - design, Lissitzky is one of the key figures of the Jewish Renaissance,Russian avant-garde, photo avant-garde AndSoviet constructivism. He is a world class person. In Russia, he is known very, very poorly: ask on the street what prouns are, the Kestner folder, figurines, a photogram, etc. - you will not hear the answer. Lazar Lissitzky also has posters that are cheaper:

El Lissitzky. USSR. Die russische Ausstellung

(USSR: The Russian exhibition),

lithographed poster for exhibition

at the Kunstgewerbemuseum,

Leaving: 25 000 GBP Sotheby's auction.

Lazar Lissitzky. Moscow is the capital of the USSR.

Moscow, 1940. 89x58.5 cm.

Lazar Lissitzky. Let's have more tanks

anti-tank rifles and guns,

planes, cannons, mortars,

shells, machine guns, rifles!

Everything for the front!

All for victory!

Moscow - Leningrad, 1941. 43x59 cm.

El Lissitzky. TsPKiO. Sparrow Hills.

Ski station "Ice Mountains". Poster.

Lissitzky showed himself brightly and brilliantly in the avant-garde photography, where he was in many ways the first and won a leading position in the world. His photomontages for the album "Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. (RKKA)" - Moscow: Izogiz, printing house Goznak, 1934- simply fantastic:

Very remarkable for the history of the Soviet constructivist political poster was the publication of the famous folder: Rodchenko A.M., Lissitzky El and others “History of the CPSU (b) in posters”. Moscow, ed. Komacademy and the Museum of the Revolution of the USSR, 1926. Folder with 25 propaganda color offset posters 72.5x54.5 cm, made in the technique of photomontage using museum materials, photographs and documents. They were also published in the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR. Most of the posters and covers were made by the artist Alexander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (1891-1956).This publication undoubtedly belongs to the genre of constructivism, in its most striking manifestations - propaganda.On the world antiques market, the price of this edition rolls over - under 100,000 "green"! After all, a symbiosis of two great artists - constructivists ... Care: £61,250. Sotheby's. December 01, 2010. Music, Continental and Russian Books and Manuscripts . London. Lot number 220. One of the famous “ceremonial” photo editions of the Stalinist period of Russian history, when the Great Tyrant created history from events that did not happen, he documented what did not happen, fixed the non-existent in the minds of people.Propaganda publications were also printed in other totalitarian states, they were given great importance, huge sums were spent, but only the Soviet propaganda book became an artistic phenomenon.

Leafing through the illustrated propaganda publications of the twenties and thirties of the last century, we feel not only a sense of fear, horror, but also admiration. This ambivalence arises every time you open books designed by Lissitzky, Rodchenko, Telingater. What is the phenomenon of Soviet propaganda printing products? The answer is obvious - time! A time that is terrible in its fanaticism, but also romantic, a time of unconditional faith and dreams.Later, these posters were banned and removed from storage, because they also depicted those leaders who later became enemies of the people.

Alexander Mikhailovich Rodchenko highly appreciates advertising posters made together with V.V. Mayakovsky. The brothers G. and V. Stenberg have film posters.

2 Stenberg 2. Exhibition

"Poster in the service of the five-year plan".

Moscow - Leningrad, 1932. 106x75 cm.

Alexey Gan. First exhibition

Modern Architecture.

Poster. 1927. 107.5x72.5 cm.

There was also a purely Jewish constructivist political and advertising poster. First of all, this was connected with the settlement of Jews on earth and with Jewish pogroms. It was also associated with OZET (Society for Land Management of Jewish Workers) - a public organization that existed in the USSR from 1925 to 1938, and which initially set the goal of arranging Soviet Jews through "agrarianization". Historically, the main sources of subsistence for Jews in the Russian Empire were handicrafts and petty trade. The existence of the Pale of Settlement led to poverty and crowding of the masses of the Jewish population in shtetls.

The famous constructivist poster

"Who's anti-Semitic?"

These people, from the malice of the beast,

the dark ones are incited against the Jew.

OST edition. Poster number 2.

Moscow, Mospoligraph, 1928.

Anti-Semitism is a conscious counter-revolution.

Antisimite is our class enemy.

OST edition. Poster number 1.

Moscow, Mospoligraph, 1928.

After the October Revolution and the Civil War, the pogroms that swept through and the subsequent devastation, merchants and artisans turned into class enemies of the new system. According to various sources, from 100 to 200 thousand Jews were killed in pogroms in the period 1918-1920. About two million Jews immigrated from the Russian Empire (including the Kingdom of Poland) to the US from 1881 to 1915; immigration to Palestine, Argentina, Brazil and other countries was also significant. By the beginning of the 1920s, more than a third of the remaining Jewish population of the USSR found themselves in the category of dispossessed. A significant part of the Jews left the shtetls in search of work in large cities, but even there unemployment reigned.On January 17, 1925, the Society for Land Management of Jewish Workers (OZET) was created in Moscow, which collected and distributed funds to help the settlers, mobilized public opinion, promoted, organized general and vocational education, cultural life, medicine for the settlers, interacted with international Jewish organizations . OZET lotteries were held in 1928, 1929, 1931, 1932 and 1933. Numerous posters were produced.

2,000,000 members of the Jewish commune.

Moscow, 1929. 49x69 cm.

Mikhail Dlugach. Jewish farmer

every turn of the tractor wheels

participates in socialist construction.

You will help him!

The second OZET lottery.

Edition of the Central Center "OZET".

Moscow, Sovkino, 1929. 62x47 cm.

Mikhail Dlugach.

Build a socialist Birobidzhan!

Moscow, 1932. 105x69 cm.

Mikhail Dlugach. 5 lottery OZET.

Let's build Birobidzhan

turn it into a model

socialist outpost in the Far East.

Edition of OZET.

Moscow, 1933. 69x49 cm.

Mikhail Dlugach. 3rd lottery - OZET.

Moscow. 1930. 101x71.3 cm.

Mikhail Dlugach. 4th lottery - OZET.

In the amount of 750,000 rubles.

ticket price is 50 kopecks.

Total 40198 wins.

Build socialist Birobidzhan -

area of ​​the future Jewish autonomous unit.

Moscow, 1932. 69x49 cm.

Mikhail Dlugach. 2nd OZET lottery.

Moscow, 1929. 71.3x108.5 cm.

Mikhail Dlugach. The third OZET lottery will give

3 million for land management and

industry involvement

new masses of the Jewish poor.

Moscow, 1930. 104.3x70.3 cm.

Mikhail Dlugach. Machines, tools, raw materials

can get:

unemployed, handicraftsmen and artisans

through the ORT ferband "Society of handicraft and

agricultural labor among the Jews of Russia.

Moscow, 1930. 71x107 cm.

A.O. barsch. Sketch for a poster for the Jewish lottery.

Gouache, ink, paper.

Moscow, 1927. 30x25 cm.

The Soviet constructivist political poster was created by many, many artists.

A. Vedeneev. 10 years.

Industrialization is the path to socialism.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1932. 105.5x70.5 cm.

N. Kotov. Building socialism.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1932. 72x54 cm.

Sergey Senkin and Dmitry Moor.

Proletarians of all countries unite!

Long live the great, the invincible

banner of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin!

Long live Leninism!

Moscow, 1932. 93.5x60.5 cm.

A. Deineka. China on the way

liberation from imperialism.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1930. 72x107.3 cm.

I. Hanf. Religion is the enemy of industrialization.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1930. 102x69 cm.

E. Zernova. Down with the imperialist war.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1930. 103x70 cm.

Long live free labor. (c. 1930).

71x106.5 cm.

On International Women's Day

unite, workers of towns and villages.

(c. 1930). 71.3x107 cm.

Mikhail Khazanovskiy. At an accelerated pace

full swing,

for five years in four years.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1930. 108x70 cm.

Nikolay Dolgorukov and Dmitry Moor.

"Soviet power is now

the strongest power of all existing

authorities in the world." (Stalin).

Moscow, 1932. 69x102 cm.

Posters were "baked like pies" - the young Soviet state spared no money for agitation:

TsPKiO. 18 August. Holiday of Soviet aviation.

Moscow, b.g. 85x61 cm.

A. Bukhovsky. Aerochem Museum. M.V. Frunze.

Moscow, b.g. 50x35 cm.

Georgy Rublev. Aviakhim is our defense!

Moscow. b.g. 48x34 cm.

Georgy Rublev. TsPKiO.

The summer hall of factories and collective farms has 1,400 seats.

Season 1932.

Moscow. 1932.

Georgy Rublev. TsPKiO. Winter base

student and pioneer.

Moscow, 1931. 100x70 cm.

Georgy Rublev. Guys! To the struggle for the working cause -

be ready!

A winter children's base opens in the Central Park of Culture and Culture

student and pioneer.

Moscow, 1930. 92x64 cm.

All for the election of factory committees!

Moscow Provincial Council of Trade Unions.

Moscow, b.g. 105x70.5 cm.

Nikolay Dolgorukov. Metropolitan.

Moscow, 1931. 73x103.5 cm.

All efforts to raise labor productivity.

Moscow - Leningrad, b.g. 107x71 cm.

I.I. Fomin. THE USSR. Leningrad.

Moscow - Leningrad, b.g. 44x30 cm.

Viktor Koretsky.

Soviet athletes -

the pride of our country.

Moscow-Leningrad, 1935. 107.5x78.5 cm.

A. Deineka. "Healthy spirit

requires a healthy body". K. Voroshilov.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1939. 87.5 x 59 cm.

Samokhvalov A.N. Long live the Komsomol!

The young army is replacing the older ones.

To the seventh anniversary of the October Revolution. 1924.

Typographical print. 93.2x59.6 cm.

Vasily Yolkin.

Long live the Red Army -

armed detachment of the proletarian revolution!

Moscow - Leningrad, 1933. 133x86.5 cm.

Vasily Yolkin created a collective portrait of the country's leadership and unfolded on the poster "Long live the Red Army - the armed detachment of the proletarian revolution!" a grandiose picture of the festive parade on Red Square (1932). In the early 1930s, V. Koretsky and V. Gitsevich joined the ranks of the followers of constructivist artists. They developed a poster form in which photographs were toned and combined with a hand-drawn image. The poster by V. Gitsevich “For the proletarian park of culture and recreation” (1932) and the sheet by V. Koretsky “Soviet athletes are the pride of our country!” (1935), which clearly and concisely reflected the most important ideological principles of those years. It should be noted that in the photomontage poster of the mid-30s, G. Klutsis, V. Elkin, S. Senkin, V. Koretsky and other artists abandoned the constructivist experiment with fonts and test blocks, focusing on the image. Poster slogans occupied mainly a place at the bottom of the sheet (G. Klutsis "Long live our happy socialist homeland ...", 1935).

“In painting, the painting was replaced by photomontage and other types of posters, which are still needed along with the design of things (industrial production)”, - asserted on the pages of the "Film Magazine" of the Association of Revolutionary Cinematography."The poster - in the sense of its" mass character "comes to replace the easel painting", - wrote the author of the New Spectator magazine. “The upcoming proletarian poster is intended to become a “street picture” ... Will we not have “proletarian easel painting” in it?”,- a topical question was asked in the journal "Soviet Art". And it was answered primarily by the constructivists, grouped around the LEF magazine and its editor Mayakovsky - A. Rodchenko, V. Stepanov, A. Lavinsky, L. Popov and others, explaining to readers:

“Resolutely rejecting indoor-museum easel art, the Lefs are fighting for a poster, for illustration, advertising, photo and film editing, i.e. for such types of utilitarian depicting art that would be mass, feasible means of machine technology and closely connected with the material life of urban industrial workers.

Grigory Shegal. Distant kitchen slavery!

You give a new life!

Poster. 1931. 103x70.5 cm.

Yuri Pimenov. All to see!

Poster. 1928. 108x73 cm.

Consistently embodying these ideas in artistic practice, they created posters that were completely new in style, one of the brightest examples of which was a sheet promoting Rezinotrest products - “There were no better nipples” (1923). Instead of the traditional and touching image of a baby with a pacifier, whose realistic image always and unmistakably influenced the audience, his hero became a kind of “homunculus” constructed from geometrized details, devoid of everything familiar, but on the other hand, vividly memorable and striking with unusualness. The “rekpam-constructors” also geometrized the traditional figures of oriental people in dressing gowns to the utmost, giving them, moreover, a huge triangle of galoshes in their hands. It stood out spectacularly against a bright yellow background, contrasting with the red and white color, shading the graphic script of the Persian text on the sheet, which was dedicated to the export of galoshes (1925).

Sergei Senkin. For a multi-million dollar

Lenin Komsomol!

Moscow - Leningrad, 1931. 106x73 cm.

Sergei Senkin. Under the banner of Lenin

for the second five years.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1931. 146x103 cm.

Dmitry Bulanov. We will remove the fields on time.

Moscow-Leningrad, 1930. 102x72.5 cm.

The composition of the poster promoting "Trekhgornoye Beer" by Mosselprom (1925) also looks very schematized. However, the victory of this drink over bursting bottles with "prudish" and moonshine was ingeniously shown on the sheet with the help of typographic rulers, multi-scale font and effective coloristic techniques. The basis of A. Lavinsky's poster "Export-Import of the USSR" (1925) is also made up of a diverse font, the "blocks" of which are placed in a complex circular composition. However, there are also pictorial elements on the sheet - at the top and bottom, wagons with goods moving along rails are drawn, which very clearly and simply explain to the viewer the basis of exports and imports in the country. The same A. Lavinsky created 1925 and a catchy sheet "Acceptance of subscription for 1926." for the State Publishing House (GIZ), the center of which is a graphic logo. Capacious in meaning, it looks concise, although it is “constructed” from a number of elements - an alphabetic abbreviation, images of a book, a proletarian symbol - a sickle and a hammer, as well as a toothed gear, denoting an element of machinery beloved by constructivists. The necessary information is clearly grouped in the composition of the poster on geometric planes that contrast in color and give a visual dynamic effect. Several posters for the GIZ in 1925 were created by V. Mayakovsky in collaboration with V. Stepanova - “The path to communism - books and knowledge”; “Students, in the State Publishing House this year all textbooks will be given on time”; “Remember GIZ! This brand is a source of knowledge and light. All of them are devoid of pictorial elements and, along with the GIZ brand, the composition of the sheet consists only of letter sets contrasting in scale and color. However, the poster, also invented by Mayakovsky in collaboration with Stepanova, - “Only the subscribers of the Red Pepper laugh from the bottom of their hearts” (1925) is already enriched with a peculiar pictorial detail - a photograph of a laughing young guy. This method of combining type elements with a photo image was first used in poster compositions by A. Rodchenko, who in 1924 created a sheet dedicated to the chronicle film by Dziga Vertov "Kinoglaz", and in 1925 - an advertisement for LenGIZ, in which a black and white photo portrait was effectively shaded with color screaming Lily Brik, as if urging the viewer to buy books. In 1926, A. Lavinsky created a similar composition on a sheet dedicated to the publication of the GIZ "Workers' Faculty at Home". And very soon, the installation method born in these constructivist posters will be adopted by the majority of professional and amateur craftsmen in the country.

Viktor Koretsky. Free working hands of collective farms in industry.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1931. 74x104 cm.

Viktor Koretsky. Unions of the USSR

the vanguard of the world labor movement.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1932. 71x100 cm.

In many publishing posters created by the constructivists in the 1920s, a characteristic feature of the time associated with the development of technical progress in the country also appeared. The cult of machinery was an important aesthetic attitude of adherents of the "production art". He was supported in every possible way by the Lefites, who called themselves "industrialists", in advertising for various factory publications. In the poster by V. Mayakovsky and A. Levin, dedicated to the subscription to the newspaper "Working Moscow" (1924), a generalized silhouette of an industrial building with a pipe was drawn, and the basis of the sheet by V. Mayakovsky and A. Rodchenko with an advertisement for the magazine "Change" (1924) composed a composition with a detailed port crane and iron fittings. The constructivists actively included an illusory or schematized image of industrial objects, machine tools, machines in posters, combining them with photographic and type fragments.

Antipenko V. For mechanized coal mining!

Moscow - Leningrad, 1931. 105x72.5 cm.

Nikolay Dolgorukov. transport worker,

armed with technical knowledge,

fight for the reconstruction of transport!

Moscow - Leningrad, 1931. 104x73 cm.

Yakov Guminer. Arithmetic of the counter industrial financial plan

2+2=5 plus the enthusiasm of the workers.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1931. 90x62 cm.

If the supporters of the “production art” who collaborated in LEF considered the poster as “the most expressive form of ingenuity and skill” and believed that “the role of a master poster artist is quite adequate to the role of a design engineer”, then the champions of traditions in the visual arts approached the poster from completely different positions. So, for example, the well-known researcher of Russian graphics, Professor A. Sidorov, demanded “to raise the question of the “aesthetics” of the poster”, in which he primarily appreciated the bright figurative beginning inherent in the best works of the past.

“In the sharpening struggle between pictorial and non-objective art, which we foresee in the near future, the poster and its art will, of course, be one of the most firmly defended citadels of imagery,” - wrote Sidorov, proclaiming the poster as nothing more than a "modern icon".

Dmitry Bulanov. 5 in 4. Shock work

transport cooperation will help to fulfill

and overfulfillment of the Transfinplan.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1931. 71x51 cm.

Dmitry Bulanov. Five-Year Plan

catering L.S.P.O.

Leningrad, 1931. 69x54 cm.

Dmitry Bulanov. Our goal,

raising the cultural level of the worker,

bring about world revolution.

Leningrad, 1927. 95x67 cm.

Dmitry Bulanov. From schools and clubs like a hurricane

open fire on the hooligans.

Leningrad, 1929. 67.5x98 cm.

Dmitry Bulanov. Do not beat the dishes -

Handle with care

dining room inventory.

Moscow - Leningrad, 1931. 77x55 cm.

El Lissitzky (also El, pseudonym: the initial of his real name is Lazar; 1890, Pochinok station, now in the Smolensk region, - 1941, Moscow) - Soviet designer, graphic artist, architect, master of the exhibition ensemble.

Biography of El Lissitzky

He grew up in a religious family of his grandfather (paternal), a hereditary hatmaker. While studying at the Smolensk real school (graduating in 1908), he became interested in drawing and the latest art.

Not admitted to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts due to his violation of academic canons in the examination drawing, Lissitzky left in 1909 for Darmstadt, where in 1914 he graduated with honors from the architectural faculty of the Higher Technical School.

In 1912 he visited Paris, in 1913 he walked through Italy, which aroused in him a craving for primitive forms of archaic, folk, and modern art, and also instilled a cult of professional skill for life.

In 1914, Lissitzky settled in Moscow, in 1915–16. visited the Riga Polytechnic Institute, evacuated there (to receive a Russian diploma as an engineer-architect), was mainly engaged in graphics, participated in the work of the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of Arts (exhibitions in 1917 and 1918, Moscow, in 1920, Kiev) and in exhibitions of the association "World of Art" (1916 and 1917). Lazar Lissitzky was an "artist of great social emotions" (Khardzhiev N.), of high creative intensity, with a keen sense of modernity.

Creativity Lissitzky

The creative path of L. Lissitzky (his active work proceeded from 1917 to 1933) is not without complex contradictions, unfinished searches, maybe even paradoxes, but the era itself was extremely complex - the time of the merciless struggle of class ideas and ideologies in culture and art, when a decisive break was made in social relations rejected by history.

Lazar Lissitzky was an "artist of great social emotions" (Khardzhiev N.), of high creative intensity, with a keen sense of modernity.

The nature of talent did not allow Lissitzky to engage in abstract, consistently linguistic abstraction. Therefore, later he would get close to the production workers and constructivists, in 1925 he would join the Association of New Architects (ASNOVA) and begin to teach the discipline “Furniture Design” at the Vkhutemas; his talent for design will manifest itself in the design of Soviet pavilions at international exhibitions (Press in Cologne, 1924; Film and Photo in Stuttgart, 1929; an exhibition of hygiene in Dresden and an exhibition of furs in Leipzig, 1930).

But this will happen after the artist has gone through his most active period: being sent to Berlin in 1921, until 1925 he practically played the role of an emissary of new Soviet art in Europe.

Promoting the Soviet avant-garde in the stylistic unity of its constituent concepts (Suprematism, Constructivism, Rationalism), Lissitzky built it into a Western context. Together with I. G. Ehrenburg, he founded the journal "Thing" (1922), with M. Shtam and G. Schmidt - the journal "ABC" (1925), with G. Arp published a book-montage "Kunstism" (Zurich, 1925), established links with Le Corbusier's Esprit nouveau magazine.

He became a member of the Dutch architectural association "Style", participated in competitions and exhibitions. At the same time, he continued to work a lot in advertising and book graphics (in Berlin in 1923, probably his best book, For the Voice by V. V. Mayakovsky, was published), in photography and posters.

Artist's work

• Composition. OK. 1920. Gouache, ink, pencil
• "Beat the whites with a red wedge." Poster. 1920. Color lithograph

• Title page of the album "Victory over the sun". 1923
• Four (arithmetic) operations. 1928. Color lithograph
• Illustration for the Jewish folk tale "The Goat". 1919

On the portal Plandi.ru you you can see with architectural projects and order.